TWO things happened last week. One felt like a slap in the face and the other like a slap on the back.

One morning after a night of pelting rain the sun came out, and I sallied forth wearing a cardigan and no jacket. But there’s a dip in the road by the park that remains flooded for hours. I was strolling along the pavement when a big car travelling at top speed went SWOOSH and chucked the equivalent of a bucketful of water over me. My hair was dripping, I was gasping, I couldn’t see through my glasses and I was soaked to the skin. I squelched all the way home, feeling cross and proletarian. I didn’t see the funny side until I’d stripped off and changed into dry clothes.

Next came the announcement that I’d been awarded an OBE! On hearing about that, my first thought had been that it couldn’t have come at a better time. This year I’ve been trying to enter into a meaningful exchange of ideas with the Darwinian establishment, but they’re very picky about who they’ll talk to. I’m making some progress, but right now anything that adds to my credibility is a godsend.

Then I came across a piece in the paper about the poet Benjamin Zephaniah, who in 2003 refused an OBE because the British Empire was an institution he detested. I could see his point. Terrible crimes had certainly been committed in the name of the Empire. I got a bit worried. Did he do right? And was I propping up the honours system? Whenever I’m confronted with a problem of political ethics, I summon up the ghost of Johnny Morgan, my father-in-law in Ynysybwl. He was a lovely and level-headed man, and a much-revered role model of left-wing probity throughout the Valleys.

I’m convinced he would have said “Go for it, girl!” The Empire that he demonstrated against in the Boer War is – he would have been glad to see – thankfully dead and gone. All that’s left are odd outposts like the Falklands, and Gibraltar, and sweet Rockall. Their inhabitants, if they have any, are only too anxious for us to stay on. And some of the knighthoods may be dodgy, but OBEs, it seems to me, are an entirely different concept. They get scattered like confetti over people who’ve just been quietly getting on with their jobs and being good neighbours – teachers, postmen, nurses, or young people who’ve done something brave.

That’s got to be a splendid idea, and if I can be counted as One of Them, that’s something to be really proud of. And I don’t know who actually sifts through these things but, the way I see it, if they’re flexible enough to extend it to somebody with opinions like mine, they must have got pretty broadminded over the years.

I walk down the street and people stop and say “congratulations”. I’m having a lovely time.